A
few weeks ago, the Oxford University Union held a debate on the "one-state
solution" in Palestine/Israel. Before the speakers had even taken to the floor,
however, the event was the focus of an intense controversy, over allegations
that the Union organizers had buckled under pressure to cancel Norman
Finkelstein's appearance. Ghada Karmi, Ilan Pappe, and Avi Shlaim -- all
scheduled to speak on the opposite side of the floor to Finkelstein -- pulled
out in solidarity. [1]

Though
concerning, the hullabaloo risked overshadowing what was at the core of the
tabled motion -- a much-needed discussion about the best way forward for
Palestine/Israel. While private initiatives offering "creative" solutions come
and go, from all ends of the political spectrum, their "innovation" is typically
restricted to how elaborately they can sugarcoat Israeli land theft or how best
to dress up a refusal to implement core Palestinian rights. [2]

The real
paradigmatic shift is not to be found in talking about the "two-state versus
one-state" solution or anything else in between, because this debate misses the
point. It's not a question of proposing a "one-state solution," but of
recognizing the "one-state reality." This has been brought about by Israel's
integration of East Jerusalem and the West Bank into the infrastructure and
legal fabric of the Jewish state since 1967, to the extent that there is de
facto, if not de jure, annexation.

This is
plainly observable on the ground when, for example, one drives from Tel Aviv to
the Gush Etzion settlement bloc with no discernible shift in territorial
sovereignty. The road networks intersecting the West Bank are just one part of
the territorial homogeneity from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. The same
aquifers provide water for both Palestinians and Israelis, albeit currently on a
discriminatory basis enforced by Israel. From border "security buffer zones" to
settlements, the occupied territories have been carved up and colonized,
absorbed physically and bureaucratically.

Even more
tellingly, in the areas of confiscated Palestinian land in the West Bank -- what
Israeli architect Eyal Weizman has called "a non-contiguous archipelago of
thousands of separate 'islands'" -- it is Israeli law that is applied. [3] These
"state lands" are created so that the settlers living in the colonies can enjoy
the normal rights afforded to (Jewish) Israeli citizens.

Strangely,
although cruder Israeli propaganda has always claimed that there is in fact no
occupation but merely "administration," the language and context of occupation
has in some ways assisted Israeli colonization of "the territories." Occupation,
by implying a temporary state of affairs, has been used to lend an air of
legitimacy to certain "security" measures (even settlement construction) despite
their intended permanency.

The two
most common critiques of a one-state solution are that it is a recipe for
massive bloodshed and that it is impossible to implement. Either or both
positions are taken not just by frothing Zionist apologists like Alan Dershowitz
but also by well-intentioned observers. Announcing the "death" of the Oxford
Union, Dershowitz claimed that the "so-called one-state solution is simply a way
of achieving by demography what the Arab world has failed to achieve by military
attacks." [4] "Demography" is the polite word for "people." With rhetoric that
any self-respecting racial supremacist would be proud of, the Palestinians are
individually and collectively categorised as a threat.

Moreover,
it is grossly disingenuous to apocalyptically predict a future one-state
solution as guaranteeing a bloodbath or "anti-Jew genocide." There already is
"one state" and the remaining question, and real debate, is over its character.
Will different laws and rights continue to be afforded to people on the basis of
their ethnicity? Will it be an exclusivist, apartheid state -- or a democracy
where Jews are no more privileged than Palestinians?

Far from
being an idealistic fantasy, the practicalities for a single state are
continuously detailed and debated by specialists in their fields. This weekend
(17-18 November) SOAS will host a conference in London organized by the One
State Group called Challenging the Boundaries. Panels of academics and activists
will "attempt to unpack" concepts like bi-nationalism, federalism,
multiculturalism in order to "contribute to the long process of engineering a
new political landscape that would not rely on imposed exclusivism of any type."
[5]

Those
scheduled to appear at the conference include professors of history, geography,
development and political science. Many, such as Ilan Pappe, Joseph Massad, Nur
Masalha, Tikva Honig-Parnass, Ali Abunimah and Ghada Karmi, have already written
on the ethical imperative and the practical feasibility of the one-state model.
Other widely available books include Joel Kovel's Overcoming Zionism, Jamil
Hilalís Where Now for Palestine? and Virginia Tilleyís The One-State Solution.

To say that
the "one-state solution" is impractical or equals the "destruction" of Israel is
poorly concealed code for defending the indefensible and a recipe for continual
conflict in a land it is impossible to partition. It is to maintain, against the
odds, the Zionist fiction that Palestine was a land without a people for a
people without a land. It is to entertain the fantasy that the occupied
territories so comprehensively colonized by Israel can become a "Palestinian
state" which isnít apartheid in name only.

Ben
White is a freelance journalist specializing in Palestine/Israel. His
website is at www.benwhite.org.uk and he can be contacted directly at
ben@benwhite.org.uk.